Honestly, this post was not anywhere in my thoughts until suddenly yesterday afternoon when I received a check in the mail from our health sharing program for over $1k totally unexpectedly. When they say God always provides, it really is true. This is proof and we are so very grateful! I have had so many people ask about this program that we have been a part of for a while and decided I might as well write something that explains it a little, so here we are.
I had never heard of health sharing programs before a Facebook friend mentioned looking for affordable health insurance and it was suggested in the comments as an alternative. It piqued my interest as I already hated insurance that didn’t really cover anything I wanted to use it for. Then a parishioner from our Catholic Church told me about it as well when we got to discussing health insurance. I was worried since I knew I would be losing our very affordable health insurance when I resigned my job as a financial accountant for a large oil and gas company shortly after we had our first baby. She told me about Samaritan Ministries Health Sharing and I was intrigued so I started researching.
How It Works
Samaritan Ministries is a non-profit charity company which focuses on Christians helping Christians with health care and medical needs. Health sharing programs are a little different from regular health insurance since members pay each other’s medical bills instead of paying copays and only going to medical providers that are in-network. Basically, you tell your medical provider you are a cash-pay patient and get cash discounts. After you receive your bills from your medical “need”, you send them to your health sharing company (Samaritan for us) and they get members to share their monthly shares (like a monthly premium) directly to you. So basically, every month, instead of sending money to a huge health insurance conglomerate, you send money directly to other members that have medical bills that need to be paid.
Why We Love It
It’s Biblically based.
While there are many different health sharing programs including non-religious ones, we joined Samaritan because it was the best choice for us. As a Christian health sharing program that is Biblically based, they won’t cover things like abortion, contraceptives, euthanasia, sterilization, and other things that go against our Catholic Faith. In order to be a part of Samaritan, you also have to have the pastor of your church sign off that you are a regular church-going member in good standing who believes in Jesus Christ. It is truly wonderful to be a part of a program that has the same beliefs as you, especially when you receive little notes with monthly shares stating that people are praying for you.
It is super affordable!
We chose not to sign up for health insurance with my husband’s full-time job because the cheapest plan was over $600 TWICE a month for insurance for our family. That doesn’t even include the ridiculously expensive deductible and the fact that barely anything was covered. When we signed up with Samaritan in 2016, they only had one plan, the Classic Plan, and that was about $400 a month for our whole family (it’s now a little more but we also get a young family discount). The non-shareable portion (deductible) was only $300 per medical need.
They recently came out with the Basic plan, which is just $250 per month for our whole family with a $1500 non-shareable amount per medical need. These non-shareable amounts aka deductibles can be easily reduced by discounts. So for instance, say I went to the ER and end up being billed for over $11k for the few tests they ran. I can call each company on each bill and ask for a cash-pay discount. Normally, every company is willing to give you a significant discount since you want to pay it off without dealing with insurance. Although with some companies I had to speak to the supervisor, I was able to get significant cash discounts on every single one of my bills. Samaritan even has a group that will negotiate your bills for you so you don’t have to deal with the medical companies! I was able to set up payment plans at the same time for minimal amounts so that I had time to receive the shares from Samaritan members to pay my bills in full.
This is a true story by the way as my discounts added up to about $7k!!! At the time, I had the Classic plan so my non-shareable portion was only $300 but that was waived since obviously $7k in discounts is way more than $300. This means I didn’t have to pay any “deductible.” So just because you see a $1500 non-shareable “deductible” doesn’t mean you have to pay for all of that out of your pocket.
Since it’s cash pay, this means routine checkups and appointments are not covered unless they are more than your $300 or $1500 non-shareable portion. This means you would have to pay cash out-of-pocket for these appointments. This still works perfect for us though since we don’t do regular checkups and appointments because we just don’t have a need to. Even if we did, the amount we save per month by having Samaritan would totally cover paying for these appointments in cash since most of the time you would still receive a cash-pay discount for being a cash patient.
Since they don’t cover routine checkups, that means they also won’t cover regular prescriptions unless it’s part of a greater need. For instance, pain meds associated with an ER visit for a broken arm would be covered under one medical need while prescription meds that you take monthly for an underlying condition would most likely not be covered. At the same time, Samaritan does have a discount prescription program for those who have this need. I personally know someone who has regular insurance and due to the ridiculous upcharge that the insurance puts on prescriptions, they still have to pay a ridiculous amount per month for their prescriptions. They recently decided to look into discount prescription programs and now are saving so much money on their prescriptions by paying cash for them instead of going through their insurance. Honestly, it’s pretty sad when necessary prescriptions for certain patients with a medical condition are more expensive when you have health insurance than when you pay cash!
Coverage of Whatever Medical Treatment You Prefer
One of the main reason I love Samaritan Ministries is their coverage of natural medical treatments. If you know me, you know that I avoid hospital and traditional doctors at all costs. We prefer to use natural medicine and what God has given us to treat any maladies that may come up. The medical experts we personally prefer to use are midwives, chiropractors, naturopaths, and homeopaths. Unfortunately, these people are usually not covered by regular insurance since they don’t perform the typical & expensive medical procedures. With Samaritan, everyone is covered as part of a medical need.
So for instance, if the kids get sick and have to go to a naturopath and chiropractor to figure out what homeopathics they need, it is all covered under Samaritan. True story, I did bring my kids to an Urgent Care last year when they had a really bad cough. We went to see if they needed some sort of breathing treatment. The nurse practitioner there looked at them and prescribed antibiotics with no real reason as to why. I then took them to our naturopath and he got to the root of the problem and found out what was making them sick. We got the homeopathics they needed to treat the root of the problem instead of just the symptoms and they started improving. The best thing about it is that it was all covered by Samaritan since it was all part of the same need. I don’t know of any insurance company that covers homeopathics and natural remedies.
Homebirth & Midwife Coverage is AMAZING!
They cover homebirths and waive the deductible!!! This could go under the affordable and natural medicine categories but their homebirth coverage is so amazing so it had to be separated. We love our midwives and homebirths and with our first, although we had health insurance, our homebirth was not covered. It is very hard to find regular health insurance that actually covers homebirth midwives in full. Even if you do find insurance that covers it, the deductible is usually more than the total cost of the midwife anyway deeming it basically useless.
Since homebirth and midwife coverage is mainly what I wanted health insurance for, once I saw Samaritan’s homebirth coverage, I was sold. They covered homebirths 100% and waived the non-shareable portion for the Classic plan that we were originally a part of. The new Basic Plan only covers up to $5,000 in maternity needs but our midwife’s fee is less than that anyway so it works perfect for us, especially since the $1500 deductible is still waived. I think they waive the non-shareable portions with homebirths because they encourage natural medicine and know how expensive maternity care is in hospitals. Yes, we know we are taking a risk in case something happens and I need to be hospitalized for a birth, making the cost more than $5k, but we have Faith in God’s provision and know He will take care of us in case something happens.
They have programs to help with the few conditions that are not covered.
You can submit things that aren’t normally covered, such as vision, dental work, and pre-exisiting conditions as “special prayer needs.” Samaritan members then have the opportunity to donate to your special prayer need if they so choose. Usually, the suggested donation amount is $30 but they can donate as much or as little as they are able to if they so choose. Every little bit helps!
This brings me back to the check aka the amazing blessing that we received in the mail yesterday. In March, a month after our youngest was born, I had to have oral surgery. I had a broken tooth that had been bothering me for a while but it got pretty bad after Gabbie was born in February and I knew I needed it pulled. I went to a regular dentist and got the terrible news that I would need an oral surgeon to pull it. Insert terrified emoji here because I was terrified and still am terrified of surgery. I ended up needing eight teeth, yes 8! teeth pulled including my wisdom teeth under general anesthesia. That is not cheap especially with no dental insurance. It ended up coming to almost $4k and that’s including a cash discount since we didn’t have insurance. God’s timing is perfect though as we were expecting a good amount back from taxes and used that to pay for the large oral surgeon’s bill.
Obviously, we had other things we were planning to use that tax refund for so I submitted this dental work as a special prayer need with Samaritan since dental work is not covered. So in May, it went out to many different members and they had the option to donate if they wanted to. We received a few hundred dollars back this way and some amazing heartfelt and kind letters saying so many people were praying for us and for financial provision for our family. It was truly amazing to receive such kind letters and prayers in the mail instead of just bills!
With the special prayer needs, Samaritan allows you to submit it more than once if you don’t get the amount you need the first time. As we only ended up getting a few hundred dollars and needed quite a bit more to cover the dental surgery, we decided to submit it again a couple of months ago. Donations to our special prayer need had been trickling in this month and we have been so grateful for every small amount we have received. Then I received the letter yesterday with a check for over $1k from Samaritan that is designated specifically for needs like these. I literally sat there in shock for a few minutes when I saw how much it was for. I was not expecting so much when we received just $300 the first time. What’s even more amazing is it’s only about $20 off from the exact amount we were short to buy the larger vehicle that our family needs and that we were saving up for. Of course, things kept coming up this month that were making that difficult but you can never lose Faith in God and His promises! The power of prayer and God’s providence is truly amazing and we are so very grateful! We will definitely be paying it forward and donating to special prayer needs as much as we can!
We were definitely blessed to find Samaritan Ministries when we did. It has been so amazing to us and so very worth it. This health sharing program has paid for itself every single year and we couldn’t be more grateful to find such a great company with great customer service who will even pray for you over the phone. They speak fluent English too, which is even more amazing, haha!
As with most everything out there, sometimes it just doesn’t work for everyone. Obviously, it does have a few downsides for those who like regular checkups and prescriptions covered by insurance among a few other things. Some people compare it to a catastrophic insurance plan. We mainly use it for emergencies and big medical needs such as maternity so it works perfectly for us. It does only cover medical needs up to $250k but you have the opportunity to participate in the Save to Share plan which will cover much much more. By being a member, you also have access to time and money-saving resources that help to keep medical costs down. It is truly fantastic all the support you get!
For those interested in learning more, feel free to visit their website HERE. Their site should be able to answer a lot of your questions and if not, their employees really are so great. If you have ever talked to health insurance employees on the phone, you know the wait is long and they are not usually happy people. Samaritan employees are the opposite and you are always happy when you get off the phone with them.
Samaritan is not the only health sharing program out there. Other notable Christian ones are Liberty Health Sharing, Medi-Share, and Christian Healthcare Ministries. Solidarity is another health sharing program that is specifically Catholic that I have heard great things about. It is more expensive than Samaritan which is why we didn’t originally sign up with them, but I will probably research more about them in the future. There are also a few secular and non-religious health sharing programs out there if you are interested in those as well. It just takes a little research!
I am more than happy to answer any questions you have about Samaritan. We obviously love them and will never go back to regular insurance again. It’s especially a great option for those who are self-employed and can’t afford regular insurance. This post is not sponsored by Samaritan in any way. I just love them so much, I had to write about them so everyone else could learn about them too! Actually, we have convinced at least four different people/families so far in the three short years we have had them to switch to Samaritan due to our wonderful experiences with them.
Let me know if you have any questions about being the next one to switch!
Thank you for sharing this with everyone. I’m so tired of paying so much for health insurance. I will be looking up Samaritan Ministries and the other Health Sharing Programs you listed in hopes that I can find one that will fit my family.